LADY CARDULA AND THE GRYPHON, by Shawn Scarber:     Duncan hated human-sized books. Sadly, they were about the only tomes created and though he wrote long letters to the monks who lived in the Sambata monastery imploring them to copy larger editions, his letters often went unanswered. “If I were a dragon, they wouldn’t […]

  A BREATH OF DARKNESS, by Liz Colter:   The wind gusted up the mountain, rattling the pine cones and shaking the blue-green branches of the trees. This was no fickle spring breeze, nor even a winter gale; it was a wind that carried the feel of fangs and decay and misery. # The chorus […]

MOUTH OF THE JAGUAR, by Evan Dicken: Hummingbird was to be the final sacrifice of the day. The man before her struggled on a raised stone slab, chest heaving as a flock of blood-spattered priests pinned his arms and legs. Sunlight glittered on the Cazonci’s obsidian dagger — curved like a jaguar’s claw to better […]

BY WAY OF THE EASTERN ROAD, by Jesse Knifely: Ren Terrowin skidded on the grimy kitchen floor and the tray of baked apples he held tottered. He slowed his steps as he picked his way across the flour sacks and potato peels littering the stones. A day of celebratory feasting left its debris. Ren delivered […]

THE CHALLENGER’S GARLAND, by Schuyler Hernstrom: Molok rose from his resting place in the damp earth. He mounted his black warhorse and rode through the gray mist, past broken tombs and stunted trees. Before a cliff’s edge he brought the mount to heel. Tendrils of fog coalesced in the heavy air, weaving themselves into a […]